Case Study: USDA Food and Nutrition Service achieves 100% uptime and 90% cost savings with Amazon Web Services

USDA Food and Nutrition Service - Customer Case Study

The USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which administers nutrition assistance programs including SNAP, needed a fast way to help recipients find nearby authorized retailers. With more than 47 million people receiving SNAP and many new users, FNS had to deliver a dynamic SNAP Retailer Locator in three weeks but faced tight budget, limited hardware availability, and a short timeline.

FNS built the mapping app using ArcGIS Server and hosted it on AWS (an Amazon EC2 Large Windows on‑demand instance) via a USDA Blanket Purchase Agreement, launching on schedule. The site serves about 30,000 visitors a month and ~50,000 map requests per day, has been 100% available for 18 months, and cut hosting costs by 90%—avoiding an estimated $250,000–$350,000 in internal build and maintenance expenses.

USDA Food and Nutrition Service

Jonathan Alboum

CIO, USDA